1870.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Socie ty. 213 



no faith in the adage which aptly describes the merit of imper- 

 fect learning, or perhaps he patronises the homoeopathic doctrine of 

 "the greater the dilution the higher the potency." On that princi- 

 ple the paper of Mr. B e a m e s (I say this without meaning any 

 offence to that gentleman) would prove more effectual if it were 

 torn into forty parts, and each handed to a separate member, than 

 if the whole were understood by one man. But, however, that be, 

 nothing could bring a greater misfortune upon the Uriyas than 

 the enforced introduction of such a principle into their country. I 

 yield to none in my earnestness for the elementary education of the 

 poorer classes, but for the sake of truth, I must confess, even at 

 the risk of laying myself open to much obloquy, that I have no faith 

 whatever in mass education by itself, independent of higher education, 

 as a means for the material, moral and intellectual amelioration of a 

 nation, however much it may recommend itself by virtue of its appa- 

 rent philanthropy : to me it has a smack of sickly sentimentalism 

 which I cannot but condemn. Elementary mass education alone, 

 without a higher education, can do but little good to any race of peo- 

 ple. It implies a soupqon or suspicion of the three Us, which is utter- 

 ly worthless as an element of intellectual improvement. In Japan, 

 we learn from Mr. Bernard, every grown up person, whether 

 man or woman, is proficient in elementary reading and writing ; 

 but the Japanese are not, on that account, a whit better than the 

 nations of Europe. In England mass education has extended much 

 more than in India, but less so than in Erance or Prussia, but is 

 England at all inferior on that account, morally, physically or 

 intellectually, to those countries ? One unhappy result of defective 

 scraps of instruction miscalled education I shall advert to, it is that 

 while the bulk of English thieves formerly were ignorant men, the 

 relative proportion of educated to ignorant thieves has of late be- 

 come as 68 to 32 ; that is, for every person who has become a 

 thief from want of education, two have taken to the profession of 

 larceny with the full benefit of the kind of education which is now 

 become so fashionable a theme of praise. That it has in any way 

 helped to raise England above other nations, I have every reason to 

 doubt. But let us suppose, as a great Frenchman once did, that fate 

 by some mortal stroke of cholera or plague was to carry off from Eng- 



